Caught! 2015 Range Rover Sport R-S With 550-HP

Ultra-High-Performance SUV Headed To Showrooms Soon

Land Rover turned the sport knob up on the 2014 Range Rover Sport, with a huge weight loss courtesy of an all-new aluminum body and chassis, but even with an available 510-hp supercharged 5.0-liter V-8, it's still not enough for some of its customers. To satisfy the needs of its truly power-hungry customers, Land Rover looks poised to crank the sport knob to 11 with the 2015 Range Rover Sport R-S. This model has been hinted at with past spy photos, and the economies of scale enabled by its tie-up with corporate cousin Jaguar, which utilizes the high-output 550-hp supercharged 5.0 in several of its high-performance R models.

This prototype caught testing near Germany's famed Nürburgring appears to have hood vents to help extract the copious heat produced by the blown bent-eight. In addition to the infusion of 40 additional horsepower, it's likely the R-S will get suspension and braking upgrades to give it a sharper performance edge, as well as some additional weight loss measures to make it even more competitive against the Porsche Cayenne and the AMG trims of the Mercedes-Benz ML and GL SUVs.

The Sport R-S is expected to roll into showrooms sometime in spring 2014, either as a late-introduction 2014 or a 2015 model. Specific market availability is unknown at this point, but considering the New York City metro area is the number one market for the Range Rover Sport worldwide, we'd say it's fairly certain the U.S. will get the R-S as well.